9 month old with no routine

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

Actually, to say there is no routine isn't accurate. There is a routine, its just not working and will be a nightmare when DD1 starts school in Sept, and I go to college.

It goes like this

7am: wake up, bottle, then dressed and plays or whatever is happening.

10am: breakfast, starting to eat more, she was really difficult before.

11am: nap, usually until 1pm but has been known to go longer. Feeds to sleep (though since eating more at breakfast she sometimes will go down on her own.)

1pm-2pm: lunch, won't eat very much at all.

3pm-5pm: plays/walk etc.

At 5pm she's a grump and is ready for a nap which means she misses dinner a lot. Then wakes again at 7.30pm which is actually the bedtime I want her to have, as its DD1s bedtime too.

She still wakes in the night atleast once and needs fed back to sleep. DP works nights and I am going to be in college so really need that to stop. I know there is an obvious answer, I just can't see it.

Do I move breakfast earlier? That would move all the naps earlier and then the bedtime would maybe fall at 7.30pm. Or something else?

She is taking between 3 and 5 7oz bottles a day depending on how many times she is up in the night.

Any thoughts are welcome! :)

Hi my DD is 10m old. If this was me I would give her breakfast a little bit earlier, I normally give DD hers around an hour/hour half after she's woke. She's a terrible sleeper so I try not to let her sleep after 3:30 which can be tough but after a few days of doing this the nights have improved slightly.

Sorry I'm not much help just thought it might be useful to get a look in on someone else's routine

This works for us:

7am wake up
8am breakfast
9am nap, usually an hour but occasionally two
10 or 11am run about like a mad thing
12 noon lunch
Afternoon nap starts somewhere between one and two and is either one or two hours depending on morning nap.
6pm supper
7pm bed following bath.

DS appears to have enough sleep, wakes a couple of times overnight but settles easily.

What time is her bedtime? Not sure mine would go 4 hours. Maybe a 9 month old needs an earlier bedtime.

DD1 just slept when I put her in her cot. So I didn't have to impose routines, I am clueless!

Xposts.

Ok, so definitely moving breakfast earlier, and will need to wake her if her afternoon nap is running on so that she will go down earlier.

My just-turned 10 month old has had pretty much the same routine for the last couple of months...

Up between 5am and 6
Bottle at 7
Breakfast at 8
Nap for 30 minutes at around 9/9.30
Bottle at 10 (recently cut this out)
Lunch at 11.30
Nap 12.30/1 for 2 hours
Dinner at 4.30
Bed and bath at 6, usually asleep between 6.30 and 7.

I think ours is a fairly typical routine for that age - eventually he will drop the morning nap and have one long nap after lunch.

Another good rule of thumb for naps is 2/3/4 hours awake time - so first nap 2 hours after waking, next one 3 hours after that, and bedtime 4 hours after that (so at 9ish and 2ish). Overtiredness is a big cause of nighttime waking so I'd suggest sorting out daytime sleep first perhaps. Hopefully then mealtimes will fall into place a bit easier! Also make any changes gradually so as not to confuse her body clock too much!

My routine for 8 month old is

7.30am wake up

8am breakfast, get dressed etc (normally have a school run)

9ish-12 playtime :D

12 dinner then a nap for 1-2 hours

2ish wake him up, playtime and school run again

4.30 tea time

5.30 bath, bottle

6pm bedtime

He sleeps right through aswell (think I was lucky with this one)

Dd is 9mo and we don't have a super strict routine. However, if she hasn't woken by 7 she gets up and has a drink, then breakfast at 8.15ish. She will then go one of 2 ways - either 10am ish nap plus 3pm ish nap ( morning one for an hour or so and the afternoon one for 30-90 mins) or 12.30 nap for up to a couple of hours. She has lunch around midday and tea at 6ish. I don't give her snacks in between.

Bedtime starts with tea at 6ish, then bath, then milk and cuddles with bed 7.30-8. She sleeps til 6ish.

It works for us - we keep ourselves quite busy and I don't live by the clock.

I don't usually live by the clock either, but fear I will become a slave to it once we have college, school and MILs to get to every morning, then tea time and bed time before DP goes out to work.

Its only been the last few weeks that she has made that routine for herself. Before that we were all over the place with her.

My Dd is Similar age.
This is her routine.
Wakes most mornings between 7 and 7:30 can sometimes be a little earlier.
Breast fed short time after waking.
Breakfast around 8/8:30
Goes back for a nap aproximately 2 hrs after waking. Sleeps for at least an hour.
More milk around 11:30
Lunch around 12.30
Second nap at around 1.30 maybe a bit earlier.
Milk at 4 ish
Tea at 5.30
Bath at 6:15 ish
Bed around 7.
Fed once in the night.

She is slightly flexible but my rule for naps which seems to work well is -
1st nap 2 hours after waking.
2nd nap about 3 hours after last waking.
No sleep after 4pm.
Personally believe good naps are the key.

I am abig fan of routine. I feel it is a major factor in why both my daughters have been extremely laid back and contented babies. She rarely cries and never for extended periods of time.

My DD gets in the bath at 7 and is dry, dressed and fed in bed by 7:30

I think your DD is having too much milk. Try to cut it down to 2 bottles per day - perhaps 1 in the afternoon after waking from her nap and 1 before bed. You might get more enthusiasm about breakfast and lunch then.

How you getting on OP?

Not too bad actually. I have brought breakfast forward but her daytime naps are still quite late. I now keep her from sleeping past 4 and she is going down around 6.30.

Once she is more settled in that I will start reducing her milk so she eats more lunch and dinner!

DD is 10 mths, routine below seems to work for us;

6.30 bottle
7 breakfast
8.30 - 9.30 nap
10 snack (biscuit & water)
12 lunch
1-3 nap
3 bottle
5 dinner
5.45 walk/fresh air
7 bath, bottle, bed